When you first see Jason Segel in The End of the Tour it looks like he’s wearing a David Foster Wallace Halloween costume. The sweats, the longhair peeking out from a bandana, the glasses and the grin. But the only people who would chuckle in recognition are the ones with some degree of familiarity with the great writer’s work. And those who feel they truly grok DFW are wont to say: “He’d have hated this!” Yet the ability to slip into this movie and spend time with a reasonable facsimile of the celebrated author as he puts R.E.M. on his stereo, eats Pop Tarts and eloquently expounds on the pitfalls of modern society is, unquestionably, a delight. Particularly since director James Ponsoldt (The Spectacular Now, Smashed) is uninterested in any winking 90s nostalgia or even poking for anything juicy to expose. Segel’s Wallace, living alone in a cheap dump out in the middle of nowhere, represents the conflicted, beating heart of self-aware American pop consumerism just waiting for that cholesterol clog to come kill him.

But this is not a David Foster Wallace biopic. It is based on reporter Dave Lipsky’s memoir of spending five days with Wallace during the Infinite Jest publicity tour, 12 years before Wallace’s suicide. Jesse Eisenberg’s Lipsky is a toned-down Salieri, a part that Eisenberg glides into. Lipsky’s books go straight to the remainder bin as he plugs away filing short copy for Rolling Stone magazine. His editor takes pity on him when he begs for the assignment to profile Wallace, of whom he is greatly jealous but recognizes is every bit the genius all the critics say he is.

The bulk of the picture is Lipsky and Wallace just talking – about writing, about television, about technology, relationships, fame and, most importantly, being genuine. Wallace is something of a gentle giant, and as Lipsky digs deeper we learn more about his battles with depression. But Wallace’s narrative refuses to fit into a simple box. He used to drink but wasn’t “a drunk.” His time on suicide watch wasn’t due to a chemical imbalance. What The End of the Tour tries to sell, and sells well, is that Wallace’s big heart was just not made for these times. He’s unable to engage with Lipsky without worrying about three chess moves down the road – about how things will be perceived, and how his reaction to that perception will be perceived. He wears the bandana because he used to live in Tuscon and would sweat. But if he takes it off now he fears people will think he’s doing it because he knows some consider it an affectation. He’s damned either way and is smart enough to recognise he is powerless in the face of image making.

The punchline to all this: Wallace’s estate does not support this film, which is based on Lipsky’s book. Pointing that out in this review may be, as Wallace says early in the movie, “too po-mo and cute,” but it’s hard not to think on this while watching, especially considering how much of the discussion is about wanting to appear like you don’t want to appear in something. Furthermore, the movie would absolutely not work with just “eccentric, erudite writer” as the star. We have to know his work. We have to know just how heavy it was to lug Infinite Jest on the bus. We have to know that he eventually fell to suicide.

Nevertheless, the film is quite touching and, at times, wise. It goes to great lengths not to make Wallace wacky. Ponsoldt has a knack of having his scenes land where you expect them to, but taking a circuitous route. When Wallace and Lipsky meet it’s like a nervous blind date. Later they become bros, joking about women on the road and chomping down junk food. They’ll never see eye-to-eye as writers (as Wallace had few equals) but they ultimately bond as men with ambition. To that end, The End of the Tour is a cautionary tale.